I would like to discuss the nature of divine healing. What is it like when the Father heals you from an injury, or condition that is causing you pain or discomfort? Here is a really powerful example from the Book of Acts: “And there sat a certain man at Lystra, impotent in his feet, being a cripple from his mother’s womb, who never had walked. The same heard Paul speak who, stedfastly beholding him, and perceiving that he had faith to be healed, said with a loud voice, ‘Stand upright on thy feet.’ And he leaped and walked.” (Acts 14:8-10)

I want us to appreciate the fact that along with the physical healing came not only wholeness of the body, but also the knowledge of how to walk. The man who had never stood on his feet his entire life was suddenly not only standing, as Paul had commanded, but he was walking and leaping also. We may be tempted to take some of this for granted because, of course, our Father can do anything, so why not give a man who had never walked the ability to do so? But let’s focus for a moment, not on Yahweh’s divine power, but on the results of that power’s acceptance. Not only was this man able to walk, he actually walked, and more than that, he ran, and jumped, and did things that require not only physical ability, but also knowledge. To run and to jump requires coordination, nerve-feedback, balance, familiarity with what “jumping” feels like so the he could land on his feet on the way down… all these things were a part of the gift, as if he has been walking and running and leaping his entire life.

We have said that Yahweh’s healing is like any other aspect of His creative nature; it does not require long periods of time or gradual change. It is immediate. We have said of Yahweh that “in the command is the power.” When our Father commands us to do something, in the very words of the instruction is the power, and the promise of providential opportunity, to fulfill that instruction. So we have immediacy, and we have supernatural provision of the power to obey. Here is another principle that speaks to our Father’s nature: in the healing of Yahweh is the knowledge of what it means to be healed.

Here is another example, this one from the Gospels: “And Yahshua said unto him, ‘Receive thy sight; thy faith hath saved thee.’ And immediately he received his sight, and followed Him, glorifying Yahweh, and all the people, when they saw it, gave praise unto Yahweh.” (Luke 18:42, 43)

This clearly took place in a very short period of time. Yahshua spoke healing unto the man, and “immediately,” as it reads, he not only received his sight, but he followed Him. How did he know to do that? In this case, we do not know if this man had been blind from birth, but it would be consistent with other examples. In Matthew 10, Yahshua heals someone who had come to be known around town by the name “Blind Bartimaeus,” so clearly he had been blind either all of his life, or for a very long time… and yet when Yahshua restored his sight (again, “immediately” as written in Mark 10:52) it says that this man followed Yahshua in the way.

With the healing comes, immediately, the knowledge of what it means to be healed. Those who are restored by the Father and Son begin to act, immediately, as if they had never been ill in the first place. When Yahshua healed Peter’s wife’s mother in Matthew 8:15, it says that she “arose, and ministered unto them.” She did what she would have been doing all along, had she never fallen ill.

The healing that the Savior provides is more than just the closing up of wounds, or the giving of strength to damaged body parts. It is also a healing of the brain and the mind. In those who are born blind, for example, the part of the brain that recognizes objects does not develop.

I recently read a study about children who are born with severe cataracts, which we can now treat, in India. When surgery fixed the problem, the children had to learn how to see. Normally, sight in infants is fully developed by the age of one, but after that the brain begins to lose some of its adaptability. In these sight-restored children, they would begin by recognizing contrasts in areas of light and darkness, then general shapes and colors, and more refinements would take place over time. At one time, surgeons would not attempt to fix the eyes of children over seven years old, because they believed that their brains would not be able to adapt to the new input. More recent tests have shown that even teenagers who have their eyes repaired can develop some degree of vision, but the point I am making is that human methods of healing, that only restore the organs, is limited, slow, and imperfect.

When our Father does it, it is complete, immediate, and perfect. I want to point out, though, that “immediate” doesn’t always mean “in a single event.” As we read in Genesis, the earth and the heavens were formed over a period of six active days by a sequence of immediately fulfilled declarations. Yah said, “Let there be light,” and there was light immediately, but that was not the end of the process because plants, animals, and humans, had not yet been spoken into being. None of these things developed from light over time, though; each stage required direct, specific intervention, and we see an example of this in a rather unique method of healing in Mark 8.

We read, “And [Yahshua] cometh to Bethsaida; and they bring a blind man unto Him, and besought Him to touch him. And He took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the town, and when He had spit on his eyes, and put His hands upon him, He asked him if he saw ought. And he looked up, and said, “I see men as trees, walking.”

“After that He put His hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up, and he was restored, and saw every man clearly.” (Mark 8:22-25)

Some might read that and say, “Aha, here is an example of healing that took some time.” No… it took place in stages, but each stage was an instantaneous response to Yahshua’s touch, and each stage was perfect for its purpose, first to fix the organs (he could see some things, but not recognize them) and then to fix the brain so that it could properly process the new input. The sun first and then the stars, plants and then animals, vision and then sight. These are all creative acts of equal importance and quality.

Now the CSDAs among us know where I am going with this. What is it like to be healed from sin?

Along with Yah’s healing comes the immediate knowledge of what it means to be healed. Along with Yah’s atonement comes immediate knowledge of what it means to be atoned; that is, forgiven, with one’s repentance accepted, and with one’s spirit a Holy Spirit. Yah’s forgiveness, when accepted by the willing soul, results in a complete, immediate, and perfect restoration. It is a translation, a transfer from the legacy of Adam, which is death, to the legacy of Christ, which is everlasting life. Paul says just this, as we read, “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” (1Cor 15:22)

Paul is speaking of the resurrection here, but does this mean that we must wait for the resurrection in order to claim this promise to “be made alive?” Paul did not wait. He writes to the Church, “Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin; but yield yourselves unto Yah, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto Yahweh.” (Rom 6:13)

Not as those who “will be” alive from the dead, but “those that are alive from the dead.”

The giving of life to those that believe is complete, immediate, and perfect. They may not understand every aspect of what they have received... but they have, indeed, received it. The very instant that one asks to be forgiven, forgiveness is granted. The very instant one asks to be healed from a life of transgression and sorrow, healing is granted. The very instant one asks for the life that is free from sin… here is where the Churches of the world have taught unbelief for faith, and weakness for divine power. The very same is true. The moment one says, “Father, create in me new life, that I shall never again sin against thee,” does the Father give a snake instead of a fish? Does He give a stone instead of bread? Does He give ashes and disappointment instead of the water of life? No. As the Scriptures say, even imperfect human fathers would not disappoint their children when they ask for good things. (Mat 7:11) This is the prayer that Yah most desires to hear from humanity, and He grants it immediately to all who sincerely and unwaveringly ask.

And with that healing, comes the knowledge of what it means to be healed. Along with forgiveness comes power to use that forgiveness, to “walk” in a spiritual sense, which means to conduct one’s self righteously, down to the very motives and intents. We read, “He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked.” (1John 2:6) In the command is the power to obey, and to obey as if one had never sinned. We are learning, yes, but it is from glory to glory, not glory to failure and then back to glory again. We are tempted, yes, but we treat these enticements as Adam would treat a temptation before the fall, and as Christ always did according to His divine nature.

Some will say, “But those aren’t the same thing. Healing a wound or an injury of the body is obviously not the same thing as healing the soul from sin. Don’t you know, the Bible says “All have sinned,” but not all are blind, or without the ability to walk. These are special circumstances, and you can’t apply this principle so broadly. You’re misusing the Scriptures.”

Well, I have been given permission to use the Scriptures that speak of Yahshua’s healing in exactly this way, and by Yahshua Himself. In fact, He has given every reader of the Bible permission to consider spiritual healing in almost exactly the same way as physical healing… with one exception. Yahshua asks, “Which is easier?”

There are those who are without victory over sin, yet they claim to be “saved,” “redeemed,” “one with Christ.” John says this, though, “If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth.” (1John 1:6) John says, “Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as [Yahshua] is righteous.” (1John 3:7) Salvation is by faith, not of works, but the New Testament writers affirm that the absence of righteous works indicates the absence of faith. Heat is the result of fire; heat does not cause fire, but where there is no heat, there cannot be fire.

Those who claim to be Christ’s but deny the victory He has offered them are claiming to have fire with no heat, faith without consistent acts of faith… and they are living a lie. We do not go around condemning those who have been taught this doctrine of devils for all of their religious lives, but if they would see the Father, they must unlearn this wicked deception, and stand in the light of Yah’s loving judgment. We are their servants, their ministers, in this matter. It is good news that we bring, not condemnation, that Yahshua has saved us out of our sins, and – as with every other example of His healing – He has provided us knowledge that we are free, that we are rescued, from death.

Let us settle this matter in our minds once and for all. Where does Yahshua give us a reason to compare the perfect, immediate completeness of His physical healing with our understanding of victory over sin?

During his Sabbath study last week, Bro. L quoted the following passage from the Book of Matthew: “And, behold, they brought to Him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed; and Yahshua seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsy, ‘Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee.’

“And, behold, certain of the scribes said within themselves, ‘This Man blasphemeth.’

“And Yahshua, knowing their thoughts, said, ‘Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts? For whether is easier, to say, “Thy sins be forgiven thee,” or to say, “Arise, and walk?” But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (then saith He to the sick of the palsy,) Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house.’ And he arose, and departed to his house.” (Mat 9:2-7)

Christ asks, “Which is easier?” This is an astonishing question, when you consider the answer He implies to be the correct one. Yahshua says, “If you think I can’t forgive sins, watch this… I am going to heal his paralysis.” The implication here is that He is going to do the harder thing, to prove that He can do the easier thing as well. If someone says, “I don’t think you can lift 40 lbs,” you can’t prove it by doing something easier, like lifting 20. Instead, if someone asks, “Who are you to go around saying you can lift 40 lbs?” You can say, “Which is easier, 40 or 50?” And then, when you succeed in lifting 50 lbs, you prove your ability to do both.

Most Christians would say that they believe in miracles of healing. They will say, “We have all these stories of people receiving their sight, and their hearing, and being made able to walk,” and that’s good… that faith, the belief that Yahweh can heal the human body, is faith indeed. But you ask them, “So does that mean He will heal your sin, your every wicked habit, if you sincerely ask Him?” They say, “Oh, no… that is another kind of problem. That is too hard. My flesh, and temptation, and Adam’s sin, and we need to wait for the resurrection…” Well, Matthew 9 just told us that healing the body is harder. Yahshua healed a paralytic to show that He had the power to forgive sins, implying that it was easier than the bodily healing… but human beings tend to reason carnally, rather than spiritually.

And of course, the passage says, “Which is easier to say?” When we understand, however, that divine healing is accomplished by that very thing, by the speaking of the power, then we grasp the promise.

With forgiveness comes victory. When the Father and Son forgive, They also give you the knowledge of what it means to be forgiven, to have your old, sinful life replaced by the new and justified one. And remember, creative acts are also accomplished in stages. We are not talking about immediate knowledge of all righteousness, or holy and incorruptible flesh. We are talking about being born again, starting a new life free from sin, and then learning more and more, in acts of creative power, through repentance, through thought processing, through the experimental exercise of our new tools of faith, what it means to be holy.

Those who do not believe in victory would say, “Of course, Christ has forgiven my sins. That doesn’t mean I won’t sin again.” In other words, to borrow from the record of Matthew 9, “Of course, I am no longer paralyzed, but I can’t walk yet. I never learned how.” Functionally, they are still paralyzed. They’re still not walking. Those who believe that they are “Free from sin in Christ,” but still commit sin, they have never truly been healed. They may feel they have been forgiven for certain, specific acts that they have confessed, but salvation is not by works, and neither is condemnation based on works. Those who do not walk in consistent victory have never let Christ forgive them, and heal them, from the very cause of their selfish works, the sin nature, the carnal humanity, that they inherited from Adam.

This is the problem: Satan and carnal reasoning have convinced people, and most Christians, that sin is somehow “harder” for our Father to heal than blindness or paralysis. One is physical, and one is spiritual, and spiritual things are less familiar to us, that is true... but what does “harder” mean for Yahweh? Degrees of difficulty mean nothing compared to infinite power. Jeremiah taught us this, saying, “Ah Adonai Yahweh! Behold, Thou hast made the heaven and the earth by Thy great power and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for Thee.” (Jer 32:17)

When speaking with the Scribes, Christ compares two impossible things, but in an attempt to show us just how perfectly the Father and Son cleanse us from sin, He represents salvation from sin as being the easier task. To the carnal man, this is foolishness. Compared to our power, both are impossible, and since sin is older, universal among mankind, more fatal, and more mysterious than any physical disability, we perceive it as harder to heal. That is natural, as it is a more serious problem, of course, significantly more serious than any physical illness; however, compared to Yah’s power, both are easy. The only thing they require is our consent, our agreement, our belief that He will do what He has promised. And so, once we decide that we are willing to believe, once we agree with what has been promised, it is the inevitable consequence of the divine nature that our faith shall see its effect.

In nominal Christianity, in every Christianity but the true and Biblical faith, we have this absurdity presented to us; we have people who believe God will heal their bodies, but not their souls... at least, not fully, not until the resurrection, the translation, or some undefined point in the future. They make salvation, the forgiveness of sins that actually transforms the life, “harder” for God than physical healing. But truly, the belief that God can more easily heal the body than the soul is more dangerous, more surely idolatry, more “another God” than the God of the Trinity ever was. Now, that’s going to be an unpopular sentiment on Facebook.

At least the Trinitarian may read Matthew 9 and ask God to forgive his sins and heal him. He may have some misconceptions about how that will work, and may require more divine aid to grasp the in-dwelling power of the Spirit that leads to the sanctified life, but no true Adventist whose writings we admire has ever barred a soul from Heaven for such a misunderstanding. Consider that.

But this doctrine, that Yahweh cannot easily hold us up and keep us from falling, this is a deadly poison. It completely denies not only what the Bible says about the Father and Son, but denies what They say about Themselves. “Which is easier?” Yahshua demonstrated that He forgives sins, and can even do the “harder” task of saying to the paralyzed, “Rise up and walk.” And when Yahshua forgives your sin, which is easier, just as He says to the paralytic “Rise up and walk,” He says to you, “Go and sin no more.” (John 8:11)

As we close, I do want to make it clear that I am not understating what our Father, and our Savior, have done for us. When I say that the forgiveness of sins is “easy,” I am speaking as Yahshua did in the passage from Matthew. I do not mean that it is without cost. The authority to forgive us of our sins, and heal our souls, was won by Christ at infinite cost, with unimaginable suffering. He endured an earthly life of greater temptations than we have ever had to face. He was condemned by His own brethren, and died a tortured death on the cross, but not by the cross, for it was our sin that killed Him.

Because of this sacrifice, which we can read about, and believe, but never fully understand, we worship Him, and give Him our praise for everlasting ages. It cost the Father and Son greatly, eternally, to provide for us the gift of salvation from sin, and we can never earn it, we can never work our way up to deserving it… all we can do is receive it with thanksgiving, and then observe with wonder how it transforms our lives.

When I testify, “I am healed from sin,” I am not pointing to myself, as if I have accomplished some great thing. I am not holding myself up as an example of someone who has made himself holy. I am declaring my amazement that “I, even I, who can do so little, who deserves so little, who is worth so little, am healed from sin.” It is the “testimony of Yahshua,” not a testimony of this sin-stained flesh.

Those who deny that a perfect God has given us perfect victory are ill, sick with a disease called “unbelief.” They are blind, and lame, and paralyzed in the spirit. They are trained that way, some from birth like the blind men in the Bible – and by even the most “conservative” of Christian sources – to accept sin as a natural and inevitable part of this earthly life. But the last generation of Christians is something new… it is something the world has rarely seen before in individuals, and even more rarely as a movement. The early Church had it. Early Adventism had glimpses of it between 1888 and its apostasy, but now is the time for the Revelation. It is time for the world to see the last book of the Bible fulfilled, which is called “the Revelation of Yahshua the Messiah,” and that is exactly what it is describing, not just what Yahshua showed to John, but what we show to the world of Him.

Those who are willing, and those who are willing to be made willing, we are the ones who will show the Savior to the world.

David.

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